1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sports guard for sports with improved shock-absorbing capacity.
2. Description of the Related Art
Outdoor activities such as fast skating and grass skiing are popular among young people. It is, however, not uncommon to see fracture and injury to the joints resulting from impacts during sporting activities. Further, accumulation of the impacts result in compression fracture as well as injury to the cartilage of the joints. A wide variety of sports guards have heretofore been provided to protect sportsmen from being injured to the knees, elbows, wrists, etc. A typical sports guard includes a shock absorbing material (e.g., sponge) covered by abrasion-resistant outer layers made of, e.g., leather, nylon, or elastic silk. Straps are provided to secure the sports guard on the part of the user to be protected. For protecting the wrist, U.S. Pat. No. 5,566,389 proposes a shock absorbing wrist guard including a shock absorbing device that has a plate, two wings extending from the flat plate, an arcuate portion bridged above a portion of the flat plate which is located between the wings, thereby defining a space between the arcuate portion and the flat plate. A plurality of cushion elements are formed in the space and connected between the arcuate portion and the flat plate portion for absorbing an external reactive force transmitted through the arcuate portion. Nevertheless, the cost is increased, and the shock-absorbing effect of the wrist guard is insufficient or not uniform in some cases.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,983,408 discloses a wrist guard for increasing shock-absorbing capacity. As illustrated in FIG. 1 of the drawings, the wrist guard disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,983,408 includes a glove-like body 11, two straps 12 secured to the body 11, and a guard device 2 provided to a lower portion of the glove-like body 11. The guard device 2 includes a substrate 20, a first resilient arcuate plate 21 projecting from the substrate 20, and a second resilient arcuate plate 22 projecting from the substrate 20 toward the first resilient arcuate plate 21 and having an end in contact with an inner end edge of the distal end of the first resilient arcuate plate 21. The curvature of the second resilient arcuate plate 22 has a vertex which has a distance to the substrate 20 longer than a distance between the distal end of the first arcuate plate and the substrate 20. When the guard device touches the ground as a result of falling, as illustrated in FIG. 2, the second arcuate plate 22 is deformed, with the distal end of the second arcuate plate 22 in contact with an inner end of the first arcuate plate 21, thereby absorbing the relative larger impact so that no impact is transmitted to the wrist. Nevertheless, compression fracture and injury to the cartilage of the joints are still problems to sportsmen even if they wear the wrist guard. The present invention is intended to provide an improved sports guard for increasing the shock-absorbing capacity, which would be extremely useful in protecting the fragile parts of a human body, avoiding occurrence of compression fracture as well as injury to the cartilage of the joints of the user.
An object of the present invention is to provide an improved sports guard for increasing the shock-absorbing capacity to thereby avoid occurrence of compression fracture as well as injury to the cartilage of the joints of the user.
A sports guard in accordance with the present invention includes a hollow body having a pad attached to a side thereof. The pad includes a substrate and an outer layer. The substrate includes a first shock absorbing member. A second shock absorbing member is embedded into at least one section of an inner face of the first shock absorbing member. The second shock absorbing member has a shock absorbing capacity greater than that of the first shock absorbing member and is located in a position corresponding to a joint of a user wearing the sports guard. By such an arrangement, transmission of an external impact to the joint is almost impossible.
Other objects, advantages, and novel features of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.